"The Man Who Studied Yoga", by Norman Mailer: "Dissatisfaction with our lives."

Why are people often dissatisfied with their life? Maybe, it's because people settle for a particular life and want more or they don't settle and wish that they had. According to Sam Slovoda in "The Man Who Studied Yoga" by Norman Mailer, "many people are dissatisfied with the present, and either dream of the past or anticipate the future"(Mailer, 129). Sam discovers that this realization is hard to come by in the real world. Sam's …

…drone of his everyday existence to take precedence over his internal wants and wishes, he loses the power to control his own path, and the direction in which it takes him. It is ironic that the narrator has tones of being a mentor or perhaps a psychologist, because Sam's Hypnotic attitude towards enduring the day-to-day life that has been put before him is the only thing that is keeping him from achieving his personal goals.